Booksmandala | About Us

A Humble Beginning

In 1992, a newly married young couple ran a small business that sold mostly post-card to tourists at the heart of Lakeside in Pokhara.

With hard work and passion, the business within a few years grew to become one of the hidden jewels of Pokhara with floor-to-ceiling stacks of books and souvenirs and became a neighborhood spot for anyone and everyone.

It became one of the largest bookstores in the Gandaki Province with a comprehensive inventory of thousands of different titles and traded books all over Nepal as wholesalers and retailers.

An Existential struggle

As the world started reeling with Technology and Technology posed an existential threat to book publishers and sellers all over the world, the effects of the war could be felt at the bookstore as well. Literature found itself at war with the internet, digital media threatened the stock pile of the beautiful hardcover picture books and souvenir items calendars, postcards and posters.

Turning Stumbling Blocks Into Stepping Stones

The rise of technology seemed like it would change the bookselling business dramatically and for the worse but the wind was so strong, it blew the business into a new direction.

The younger generation of the family, fueled by their own love of reading started an instagram account named ‘booksmandala’ and started #bookstagramming the lofty collection of the books at the bookstore and general inquiries from the people who passionately followed the bookstagram, made the young generation take an interest in the family business.

Through a team of equally passionate people, they were able to create a community of book lovers of all ages, genders, sexualities, and ethnicities who engaged to the bookstagram account to find, discover and purchase books.

Reinventing Retail

Encouraged by the response on social media, the team decided to make it easier for people to discover and buy books and started working on an e-commerce website.

‘booksmandala.com’ was first launched in October 2019 and responding to popular demand, another milestone was added to the history of the business with the establishment of a physcial store in Gairidhara, Kathmandu on February 2021.Pivoting to e-commerce has helped the business weather the digital storm and the team behind it is taking taking significant steps to capture the digital market, working on new features to add to the website every day.

Long live the book!